Hackaday links: February 7, 2010

This free range robot was spotted at this year’s Kinetica Art Fair. You can place your hand above it and it will stop and pour you a beer. That’s if you consider 7/8 of a glass of head ‘a beer’.

Photo booth adds fun – consumes floor space

Face it, photo booths are fun, and if they’re free a lot of people will use them. This particular booth was built in some guy’s apartment, adding the fun but eating up floor space. But this would be a great build for your next group gathering, just like the Crushtoberfest. [via DVICE]

More human through-hole design

[Fridgehead] stuck and 5mm LED in his earlobe and then used a microcontroller to make it pulse. He’s got quite a mop and that’s where he hides the black controller pack. The next version should be RGB and the smallest surface mount packages he can solder. At least this isn’t disgusting like the LED nipple ring.

Chandelier your wife will never let you install

This 300 LED chandelier uses epoxy coated wires draped around the light ring to resemble a more traditional crystal light fixture. It’ll still be a hard sell if you want to hang this over the dinner table. [via Gizmodo]

A touch of copper

[Zombie84] built a prototype of a robot arm out of copper pipe. There’s not much info here, but you can see some wires in the wrist that appear to function as tendons. This reminds us of the characters from 9.

@octel
No, really. To prove the point I just asked mine and she laughed in my face. Mind you, I’d reciprocate if she was the one to suggest hanging something so fugly, so perhaps “Spouse”. Plus it’s unshaded light would be harsh and uneven, and I’d be worried about it overheating.

Ask 100 married women if they like the looks of that “chandelier” enough to install it over the kitchen table.

If *half* want a copy for their dining room, I’ll concede that the caption was sexist. No… forget that… If you can find even 10 that want a copy for their home, I’ll concede sexism. Frankly, I’d be surprised if you could find 1.

I’m not fond of that lamp’s aesthetics either, but I’ll bet you could find more guys that would hang that thing than girls. Acknowledging such a difference in a off-handed attempt at light humor is not a crime. Chill out.

Men and women are “the same” to the extent that a right and left shoe are “the same.” Clearly, one is no more valuable than the other, and the contribution of one is not more important that the contribution of the other. But, they are not the same.

Of course, if it turns out that you regularly leave the house with your shoes crossed, I guess my analogy won’t mean much.

I think of the chandelier headline as satire. Obviously there are women who find it intriguing while their husbands would never allow it to be installed. Taste isn’t gender specific but I think we can all agree that many will not like the look of this.

The chandelier is definitely geeky and after you build and hang it for the wife, girlfriend or whomever…this needs to be on the wall opposite the chandelier! Vintage Hard Drive Pendulum Wall clock.
Cheers,
Rob